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Birds with altitude – seagulls vs. ravens in the skies of SoHo

Part 7 of the Spooky black birds of SoHo series, for my #AnimalMOOC Field Notes.

Walking into work the other day, I thought I’d swing by the forested rivulet area to see if there were many ravens about. Unfortunately, there weren’t, but I did see a lot of them flying overhead to the tip, presumably.

I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that ravens and seagulls seem to occupy different airspace over SoHo. The seagulls soar rather high up, while the ravens traverse the area much lower down. I’m thinking this is because while the seagulls are just commuting to a known food source (the tip), ravens are constantly on the scavenge for tasty bits of roadkill, stray sandwiches etc., and that in flying lower, they are more likely to spot tasty tidbits at ground level. I think this would be an interesting thing to potentially study for my field notes assignment.

I passed the Cascade Brewery on the way down too – apparently, forest ravens have a field day here when the big apple bins full of fruit are brought in for the cider brewing and apple juice production – unlimited access to apples is apparently a big plus if you’re a corvid.